This invention relates to the Internet and more particularly to banner ads played on the Internet. An apparatus and process relating to scalability of an Internet banner advertising process and apparatus is disclosed.
Banner advertising on the Internet is computationally intensive on the central advertising controller. To fully understand this problem, it is necessary to understand the principal components contributing to such advertising. For the purpose of setting forth the problem encountered, we will refer to the advertising schemes set forth in the above two Cezar applications; it will be understood that the problems there set forth are equally applicable to the Merriman et al ""061 Patent.
In so-called banner advertising, an inquiring browser connects over the Internet to a customer website. Immediate and temporary diversion occurs from the customer website to the advertising system central controller. During this diversion as set forth in the Cezar and Heintz disclosures, the inquiring browser is altered to install upon its screen a frame set in which advertising messages can subsequently be displayed. Further, and, a list of ads to be played is furnished to the inquiring browser. Thereafter, the inquiring browser loads the remainder of the webpage and normal webpage viewing occurs with banner advertising being presented to the viewer of the browser.
While normal web page viewing occurs, ads from the list of ads provided are fetched on the Internet and played in the frame set provided on the modified browser. Each ad will remain for a designated period of time, time out, and be replaced by a new ad fetched by the browser over the Internet. Alternately, the ad can be xe2x80x9cclicked.xe2x80x9d This clicking usually causes diversion of the browser to a Internet address designated by the advertiser. In the case of the xe2x80x9ctiming outxe2x80x9d of ad play, or a xe2x80x9cclickxe2x80x9d on the ad, a report is made from the browser to the advertising system central controller in the form of a xe2x80x9cquery stringxe2x80x9d. Such a report is in the format of a URL address, a sub file name for the destination within a server at the URL address, an instruction for storage of the attached data at the sub file in the server, and the finally the data to be stored.
As will hereafter be further emphasized, the system described in our preceding U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/291,785 filed Apr. 14, 1999 by Robert M. Cezar entitled Internet Advertising with Controlled and Timed Display of Ad Content from Centralized System Controller, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,651 issued Oct. 3, 2000, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/335,384 filed Jun. 17, 1999 by Robert M. Cezar and James Heintz entitled Internet Advertising with Controlled and Timed Display of Ad Content From Browser, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,127 issued Dec. 12, 2000 are what we term xe2x80x9creport systems.xe2x80x9d These systems do not send or record a report of an ad being played to the advertising system central controller until the ad has in fact xe2x80x9ctimed outxe2x80x9d at the inquiring browser. This is to be distinguished from so-called xe2x80x9cpull systemsxe2x80x9d which bill the advertiser when a request is made for the URL address of the ad. Generally, it is believed to be more favorable to the advertiser to bill only for advertising displayed for the full intended period of xe2x80x9cplay time.xe2x80x9d
Two advantages are realized by the Cezar and Heintz disclosure. First, a report and following charge to the advertiser is only made when an ad either times out or alternately is xe2x80x9cclicked.xe2x80x9d Second, the timing of the receipt of the query string at the server is not critical; such reports can come in piece meal from the Internet over widely spaced time periods and not interfere with system operation.
The advent of supplying a xe2x80x9clistxe2x80x9d of ads to be played to the browser represented a reduced computational load on the advertising system central controller. However, as banner advertising has expanded, required computation has expanded. For example, the advertising system central controller had to compute and supply for every inquiring browser and ordered list of ad addresses to be played during the browser/website session. Each inquiring browser hitting on a customer website required a advertising system central controller computation of an ordered play list customized to the website.
Advertising banner systems can be called on to serve hundreds of thousands of websites. The computation of correspondingly hundreds of thousands of play lists can be computationally intensive on an advertising system central controller. We have discovered the need for an advertising system, which system takes full advantage of the distributed computer intelligence present in the Internet. The idea is to minimize the computational load on the central controller. This enables a central controller to service a greater volume of website advertising. Additionally, it leaves the advertising system central controller free for the necessary tasks of advertising system administration, reporting and billing. Prior systems have not been designed with this goal in mind.
It is to be understood that recognition of the problem to be solved constitutes invention. In so far as we are the first to recognize this problem, we claim invention. Accordingly, we disclose a system design having as its principal objective the minimization of computational activity at the advertising system central controller and the distribution of the advertising task to the distributed intelligence of the Internet including the browser.
A process of banner advertising display on an inquiring browser viewing a website over the Internet includes inquiring from the inquiring browser to a website authorizing display of banner advertising. Diversion from the website to an advertising system central controller occurs. The central controller has a group of Internet ad addresses of each ad and classification information related to a frequency of desired ad play. The inquiring browser displays a frame set for location of an advertising banner, which frame set is either supplied by the webpage or preferably installed on line through alteration of the browser. The system is weighted to take computational load off the advertising system central controller and apply a distributed computation load through the Internet or exterior components of the main database of the advertising system central controller. The inquiring browser is supplied with code to enable sorting of the group of Internet ad addresses relative to the classification information and related to the frequency of desired ad play at the inquiring browser. Further, a group of Internet ad addresses with classification information enabling ordering of ad play at one inquiring browser relative to frequency of ad play at other inquiring browsers is provided. Additionally, sorting the Internet ad addresses relative to the classification information related to the frequency of desired ad play of each ad at the inquiring browser to form a sequential play list occurs at the browser and not the central controller. A process for accumulating the reports of ad play utilizing query strings is set forth in which the query strings are serially recorded, occasionally polled, and compiled into advertising system central controller compatible reports. The concept of classification of the websites with corresponding group classification of ads to be run is used to edit ad availability from an extraordinarily large number of available ads to a manageable play lists which can be sorted at the browser. Finally, a system of ordering the play of ads in the overall process of playing many ads against many targeted numbers of plays is disclosed enabling total ad play to be centrally controlled with minimal computational burden on the advertising system central controller.